Many financial and/or lending institutions utilize multiple systems to collect customer information for different types of consumer loan applications. In the most basic scenario, printed-paper forms, with spaces provided for the entry of typed or hand-written customer information, are used to collect any requisite information to facilitate processing of the application and consideration for approval. Different types of loans may typically require different types of information for consideration during processing. As a consequence, different forms may be used by the financial and/or lending institution for each available product (e.g., home equity loan, personal loan, auto loan, and so on).
Because at least a portion of the requisite information may be identical for each loan application (e.g., customer identifying information and/or customer financial information), a loan officer or other representative of the financial institution may be required to repeatedly enter this information into the different forms (or into the same form if the customer returns at a future time for the same product), thereby reducing productivity, and introducing additional potential for errors. Often, the information included in the forms is subsequently entered into a computer system for manipulation or storage, thereby further increasing the likelihood of data integrity errors.
Similarly, the same “forms” may be available in an electronic format accessible by the loan officer or other representative, for example, via a computer. While the potential for data entry errors may be reduced by eliminating the transfer of information from the paper-based form to the computer system, no adequate mechanism exists for populating data fields of electronic loan applications or additional electronic loan applications with previously entered customer information. As a consequence, even though the customer may have previously provided much or all of the requisite information for a consumer loan application (and the information may have been entered by a loan officer or the like for electronic storage), the information is functionally inaccessible for the purpose of completing the consumer loan application, and must be re-entered by the loan officer or other representative.
For example, a customer may open an account (e.g., a checking account) with a local branch of the financial institution and provide a variety of customer identifying information. If the customer returns two weeks later to apply for a credit card, for example, from the financial institution, the same customer identifying information will typically be required, along with additional financial information, for example, and will need to be input again for the credit card application to be processed. Similarly, if the customer is interested in another product in addition to the credit card, a separate loan application, including the same customer information and/or financial information, may require the information to be input yet again. In addition, the loan officer or other representative may have to access a series of appropriate electronic forms to facilitate the entry of information required to process the applications, thereby contributing to a decrease in productivity and an increase in the potential for errors that may delay processing of the applications and result in customer dissatisfaction.